US President Obama has described the tornado, which ripped through Alabama killing over 200 people, as “heartbreaking.”

Press TV interviewed Author and Editor of mediachannel.org Danny Schechter regarding the fatal tornadoes occurring in the United States.

Press TV: Danny, tell us what you think about the rescue and recovery efforts, and more so about the rescue attempts. We had one incident of a lady saying she could hear whining in the debris, but nobody could get to them and there were no sign of any relief or emergency workers in sight.

Schechter: Well this thing was just devastating. It was compared to an EF5 tornado, which is considered the most devastating of all the tornados. This one happened in Mississippi and was compared in force and power to the tsunami that hit Japan. So you have a tremendously dangerous, very sudden and fast moving storm. In these places there are people called storm chasers and spotters who are working to try and disseminate information.

They say it resulted as the best possible warning for those in harm's way. With the tools at their command, thousands of people might have died if they had not been at work here. Now they are looking for new types of radar and new types of warning technologies including infra sound technology to try to warn people about these devastating storms.

President Obama called it heartbreaking. I'm sure it is. I'm not there. I haven't experienced it personally, but from what I'm reading it's disastrous. Your viewers might want to look at a website called tornadovidoes.net where you can see what the storm chasers saw in terms of various powerful tornados hitting the ground.

Press TV: It is alarming in terms of the nuclear power plant in Alabama Danny Schechter. Given the fact that you are in the United States, is the news media being forthright about what's going on? The latest indicates it's offline as we speak.

Schechter: Well my guess is that the news media is scrambling, and trying to do a good job. However, the irony here is that somebody reported yesterday while all the American media was covering the royal wedding in Britain that Al Jazeera was actually covering the tornados in the South. They were the only network covering it extensively. This is the bizarre situation here in terms of news.

The news media seems to be able to cover one story well at a time. I think in terms of the impact of this there are a lot of media outlets covering it at the local state and international level.